


Quiet (Except With You)

by undercoverwarlock



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Based on a Tumblr Post, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fluff, Hogwarts Eighth Year, M/M, Oblivious Draco Malfoy, Oblivious Harry, i love them, just pure fluff, look at these idiots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-18 04:22:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28986318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/undercoverwarlock/pseuds/undercoverwarlock
Summary: He never could get a good night’s sleep. Before the war, it was a constant gamble of whether or not his dreams would be his own, or if what he saw would be real. During, well. After, the nightmares haunted him, ghosts he couldn’t escape. He thought coming back to Hogwarts might help, a return to normalcy, but if anything, the thought only reminded him of everything he had lost.-Based off a tumblr post by draco-lucious-potter: "[...] what if it’s Harry and Draco’s 8th year at Hogwarts, and Harry has a hard time sleeping so he kinda just chills in the common room every morning, like super early. He just sits by the window, and drinks tea/coffee and watches the sunrise and thinks about life, you know. Anyway eventually he realizes that every morning, Draco Malfoy comes down a little later than he does, and just sits infront of the fire. He doesn’t say anything, but he always shares an awkward nod with Harry in the morning. That goes on for a couple weeks before Harry starts putting a cup of tea/coffee out for Draco. Every morning."
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Seamus Finnigan/Dean Thomas
Comments: 10
Kudos: 274





	Quiet (Except With You)

**Author's Note:**

> *sigh* characters belong to JKR, who is still as of this day, 25 January 2021, a TERF.

He never could get a good night’s sleep. Before the war, it was a constant gamble of whether or not his dreams would be his own, or if what he saw would be real. During, well. After, the nightmares haunted him, ghosts he couldn’t escape. He thought coming back to Hogwarts might help, a return to normalcy, but if anything, the thought only reminded him of everything he had lost.

It was Hermione who had convinced him to return for his eighth year. “If you still want to be an Auror, you have to get your NEWTs,” she reminded him as they cleaned out Grimmauld Place, trying to disinfect the dark magic that stained the very walls. “Not to mention the message it would send. If the Saviour of the Wizarding World thinks Hogwarts is safe enough to attend, more families would be comfortable letting their children go. And you’ll have me there.”

He sighed as he unhooked the last stuffed house elf head from the stairwell. She was right. He needed his exam results to start Auror training, and his return would be good for Hogwarts, even if it was as the Saviour and not as Harry. So he reluctantly agreed. He would have preferred that Ron came with them, but he was busy helping George with Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes, and Harry knew that was where he needed to be right now.

Headmistress McGonagall had been busy in the intervening year between the Battle and the reopening. Hogwarts had undergone a serious renovation, complete with a new set of dormitories for the eighth-year students in the West Tower, right below the owlery. Here and there, small bronze plaques were set into the stone floors or walls, marking where certain people lost their lives. The night of the Start of Year feast, Harry had found one set into the flagstones in the Great Hall. About the size of a dinnerplate, it was engraved with a simple lightning bolt and a short line of text – “Here Harry Potter defeated Voldemort, 2 May 1998.”

That first night had been strange. The eighth years initially sat with the rest of their houses, the hall feeling incredibly empty without the usual hive of excited activity. Harry, sitting between Hermione and Neville, looked over at the far table. Only a handful of Slytherins had returned, most from the younger years, but one stood out. Draco Malfoy, as part of his sentencing, was back at Hogwarts.

Harry couldn’t believe it at first. It didn’t look like the Malfoy he knew. He sat apart from the rest of the Slytherins, his once proud head hung low as he picked at the food on his plate. His hair was no longer slicked back and was instead loose and un-styled around his pale and pointed face. He seemed to fold into himself, as if he could make himself invisible simply by taking up the least amount of space possible. Harry kept finding his gaze drift over to where Malfoy sat, wary at first but with growing curiosity and sympathy, until Hermione raised an eyebrow at him and he forced himself to focus on the conversation around him.

When McGonagall showed them to the eighth-year dormitory, Harry leaned over to Hermione and asked, “Does Malfoy look different to you?” She rolled her eyes.

“Of course he does,” she said under her breath. “We all do. But I will say, he seems…quiet.” She glanced over her shoulder to where Malfoy hung at the back of the group of eighth years, his hands in his pockets and his eyes focused on the ground beneath his feet. Hermione frowned and turned back. “I will say,” she murmured, “I think he has changed. Hopefully for the better. Only time will tell.”

The eighth-year common room was small and cosy, hung with tapestries and portraits depicting themes from each of the four houses. A fire blazed in the fireplace, around which were arranged an eclectic mix of sofas and chairs. There were a couple of tables at which to study, and a wide window with a deep sill that overlooked the grounds. McGonagall explained that there were two sets of dormitories, two rooms for the girls and two for the boys, and that it was up to them how to split up the rooms. The nine girls had a more difficult time than the eight boys, if only numerically.

“Four and four, yeah?” said Neville, looking around at their little rag-tag group. He, Harry and Dean were the only Gryffindors returning. Zacharias Smith, much to Harry’s dismay, had returned along with Ernie Macmillan and two Ravenclaw boys, Terry Boot and Kevin Entwhistle. “We could draw straws, or…”

“Or we could split it so Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws get one room, and the Gryffindors get the other,” Zacharias interjected. He smirked as he glanced over at Malfoy, who had perched on the arm of a sofa and didn’t seem to be paying much attention to the discussion. “Which means you get to keep an eye on the Death Eater.”

“Ex-Death Eater,” Harry corrected him, almost automatically. Zacharias was not the only one to look surprised at Harry’s defence – Ernie and Neville both frowned at him as if he had just said the sky was green and grass was blue. Harry shrugged and did his best to ignore the uncomfortable tightness in his gut. “What?” he demanded. “He’s here, just like the rest of us. Give him some credit.”

“Only because the court said he had to be,” Neville reminded him gently. “It was here or Azkaban.”

“So let’s not treat him like he chose Azkaban, alright? The war’s over. Let’s just try to move on, okay?” Harry levelled his gaze at each of the other boys in turn until they all either looked away or nodded. “Right. How about this – we try Zacharias’s idea, and if anyone wants to switch rooms at any time, we can switch. How does everyone feel about that?”

They all shrugged and muttered that “yeah, that works.” Harry looked over at Malfoy, who was still staring at the fire in the grate. “Malfoy?” he called. The other boy looked up for the first time that night. He looked so tired, Harry thought. “You’re rooming with us Gryffindors. That okay with you?”

Malfoy shrugged one shoulder. “Fine,” he said, his voice painfully neutral. “Whatever.”

Harry blinked. He had expected Malfoy to fight it, to whinge about being stuck with the Gryffindors, maybe even demand that he get his own room. But Hermione was right – Malfoy had changed, and that more than anything worried Harry.

The first couple weeks of terms passed in a blur. Harry had half-forgotten what it was like to be in school, to have to study and do homework. But after a few jarring days, he had settled back into his old routines and patterns, with one exception.

He would lay awake until past midnight, toss and turn for a few hours and snatch fragments of restless sleep, only to wake up just before dawn without any hope of going back to sleep. This wasn’t anything new – he had been dealing with insomnia in one form or another all his life. These days, when he woke up, he would sneak down to the common room, wrapped in his bathrobe, and settle into the window seat to watch the sun rise over the grounds. He had accidentally startled a house elf cleaning the ashes from the grate the third or fourth morning he had done this. In the end the elf, Gerald, started bringing cups of tea for him to drink.

Halfway through September, however, his routine was disrupted when one bleary-eyed Malfoy began showing up in the common room about half an hour after he did. The first time, they had exchanged startled, awkward nods, before Malfoy settled into the sofa with the book he had brought to read. He promptly ignored Harry for the rest of the morning. By the fifth day of this, Harry asked Gerald to bring two cups of tea, and began setting the second cup on the coffee table in front of the sofa. Malfoy, surprised, had given Harry a rare smile for that. And if that was the reason he made it a habit to set out a cup of tea for Malfoy with a Stasis charm on it to keep it warm, well – Malfoy didn’t need to know.

The first week of October came with a sudden chill. The sun slowly began to rise later and later. Then, one day, Malfoy came down for his early morning tea, and Harry was sat on his sofa. Malfoy froze, brow furrowed as he looked from Harry to the two cups of tea on the table and back again. Harry smiled crookedly up at him and set his book down in his lap.

“Good morning,” he said. Malfoy only frowned. “There’s not much of a sunrise at this hour,” Harry explained, gesturing at the darkness outside the window, “so I thought I’d take a leaf from your book and read by the fire.” When Malfoy still didn’t move, Harry’s smile fell. He searched Malfoy’s face with worried green eyes wide behind his glasses. “Is that alright?” he asked. “I can go sit on the windowsill if it makes you more comfortable.”

“No,” Malfoy said at last, his expression clearing until all that remained of his scowl was a slight crease between his brows. “I just… You make no sense, Potter. Why are you being so nice to me? First at my trial and then on the first night and now…” He bit his lip. It was the most Harry had heard him speak in the past several weeks. “You hate me,” Malfoy continued, his voice barely audible as he looked at Harry, his grey, rain-coloured eyes lost and confused. “I fought against you. Why are you treating me like a….”

“Like a friend?” Harry asked. Malfoy nodded once. Harry smiled, small and compassionate. “Listen,” he began, picking his words with care, “say what you will about Dumbledore, but if he taught me anything, it’s that the most important things in this world are love and forgiveness. It took me years to fully accept it, let alone understand it, but….” He trailed off, looking down at the book in his lap, a biography Hermione had lent him on a witch who tried to fly around the world on her broom. “You didn’t turn me in,” he murmured. “At the Manor. You could have, but you didn’t.”

“And you could have let me die in that Fiend Fyre,” Malfoy replied, “but you didn’t.” Finally, he sat down next to Harry. They looked at each other with new eyes, smiling tentatively as they put the pieces of their past behind them. “I never thanked you,” he said, “for giving me back my wand. Thank you.”

Harry shrugged. “It belonged to you,” he said. “It wasn’t mine to keep. Besides, I fixed mine, so I didn’t need it.” Malfoy rolled his eyes, the beginnings of a laugh in the curl of his lips.

“Take the ‘thank you’, Potter,” he said. “I’m not saying it again.”

Harry grinned. “Fine, then. You’re welcome.”

-

It took less time than Harry thought for Malfoy to become Draco. It took longer for Draco to call him Harry.

They were at breakfast, chatting about the upcoming match between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw. Harry had come from an early morning training session with the Gryffindor Quidditch team – they barely had enough players, even with the first years they let join, and most of the practice was spent running simple drills to get them comfortable on their brooms. Still, Harry had worked up an appetite, and had already polished off a plate of eggs and streaky bacon and was eyeing the toast on Draco’s plate across from him. Draco noticed this and raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t you dare,” he warned, pulling his plate closer to him. Harry smirked.

“You haven’t touched it,” Harry argued. He leaned forward on his crossed arms, his eyes glinting behind his glasses. Draco gestured to the rest of his plate, the breakfast half-eaten.

“You see this? I am savouring my breakfast, not inhaling it like some animal. Just because I haven’t eaten my toast yet doesn’t mean I’m not going to.”

Harry bit his lip to contain his grin, and Draco’s eyes narrowed.

“Don’t – ”

But Harry was too fast for him. He snatched the toast right off Draco’s plate, but not before Draco smacked his hand and sent the toast flying down the table, knocking into Neville’s pumpkin juice. They both froze, staring like deer in the headlights at Neville. For his part, Neville only sighed and hung his head. Then he waved his wand and the juice went back into its glass. He gave them both a beleaguered look, but instead of sobering them, Draco and Harry broke down into giggles.

Draco wiped at his streaming eyes as he tried to get a hold of himself, shaking his head at Harry who was still clutching his ribs. “For fuck’s sake, Harry,” he wheezed, “why are you like this?”

Harry looked up, his grin splitting across his face. “Why am _I_? You hit me!” Draco only rolled his eyes and took a sip of his tea, still smirking.

“You deserved it, you toast stealer.”

“If you just let me have it in the first place…”

Their argument continued until Draco had finished his breakfast, after which he simply waved Harry away with a, “I’ve had enough of you, I’m going to be late to Charms, no thanks to your shenanigans.” Harry only laughed, and waved at him with one of the pieces of toast Draco had abandoned on his plate.

Draco shook his head with a grin as he made his way out of the Great Hall. He didn’t get far before he was waylaid by a gaggle of Slytherin girls, all of whom wanting to know if Draco was going with anyone to Hogsmeade that weekend. Harry noticed confused panic flash across Draco’s pale face before he slipped back into his polite and neutral mask. He glanced over at Harry over the girls’ heads with a pleading look. Harry took a bite of toast, smirking. Draco scowled at him before turning back to the girls. Harry chuckled.

Neville slid into Draco’s vacant seat, fixing Harry a pointed look. Harry raised his eyebrows.

“What?” he asked.

“Since when are you and Draco friends?” Neville asked. Harry shrugged and took another bite of toast. “And since when does he call you _Harry_?”

Harry almost choked on the toast.

Once he managed to clear his throat and downed a good bit of his pumpkin juice, he admitted, “The first name basis thing is new. But we’ve been… whatever we are for a few weeks now. What? I thought you of all people would appreciate the effort, house unity and acceptance and all that.” Neville had been making an active effort to integrate the houses with McGonagall’s blessing by hosting weekly games nights. He at least looked sheepish and didn’t meet Harry’s gaze.

“Because,” he said, “it’s Malfoy. That git has been tormenting you and your friends for years, me included. Why the change of heart?”

Harry sighed and set his toast down. “Well, it’s like I said the first night,” he reminded Neville. “The war’s over. And the only way we recover from it is we forgive each other and move on. Draco’s paid his price. No use asking him to continue paying for his mistakes, or the mistakes of his parents.” He pushed his plate away with a shrug. “Besides, once you get past the prickly outside bit, he’s not bad, actually.”

Neville raised his eyebrows. “If you say so,” he said, getting up and slinging his book bag over his shoulder. “If you ask me, it’s still weird to be sleeping in the same room as him, but if you want to be his friend, then that’s on you. Now come on, we’ve got Transfiguration in ten minutes.”

-

On Halloween night, the eighth-year students gathered in their common room for a party. Nothing too exciting, just a night of drinking smuggled Firewhiskey and mead while stuffing their faces with all the sweets the kitchens could give them. A few had gathered for some party games, and there was a good deal of giggling coming from a group that started playing Truth or Dare in front of the fireplace. Draco and Harry contented themselves with sitting side by side in the window seat, Draco sipping a glass of whiskey and Harry sticking with butterbeer – he had found out the hard way the year before that alcohol didn’t agree with him.

“Can I ask you something?” Draco asked, his voice low and barely audible above the din of the party. He turned his head towards Harry, who glanced at him and shrugged with a smile before taking a long swig of butterbeer.

“Shoot,” said Harry as he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. Draco’s eyes tracked the movement, lingering on Harry’s lips before looking away, a rosy blush on his high cheekbones as he sipped his whiskey.

“What happened between you and the girl Weasley?” he asked. He stared at his glass, his blush blooming across his cheeks. Harry’s heart hitched in his chest. He swallowed and set his butterbeer on the floor before drawing his knees up into his chest, the soles of his feet pressed into the edge of the window seat.

“Oh,” Harry whispered. “Erm. Well. Long story short, we realised we loved each other, but we weren’t _in_ love with each other.” He shrugged, nestling his chin against his knees. “She’s off training with the Kestrels now, so, you know, she’s doing well.”

“And are you?” Draco asked, glancing at Harry out of the corner of his eye. “Doing well?”

Harry bit his lip and didn’t answer.

Hermione came down from the girls’ dormitories, hair frazzled and eyes dazed. She didn’t even notice Harry and Draco in the window seat and instead made a beeline for the snacks table, piling a plate high with custard creams and chocolates before turning back towards the dorms. She was taking every N.E.W.T. subject possible and already it was starting to take its toll. When Harry had asked her over lunch if she was coming to the party, she had thrown up her hands and exclaimed in a very shrill voice, “It’s a Tuesday! No, I’m not going to a party on a bloody school night!”

She was a couple feet away from them when recognition finally dawned on her face.

“Harry! Malfoy,” she added, nodding politely at Draco. “Sorry, I didn’t see you there, I was… I have this essay due tomorrow morning and I just… How are you?”

Harry smiled sympathetically at his over-achieving friend. “I’m okay, just enjoying the party. Try to get some sleep, Hermione, won’t you? You need to take care of yourself. Your health is more important than a grade.”

Hermione sighed and shook her head. “That’s easy for you to say,” she retorted, but there was no malice in her words, just a grateful smile. “But you’re right. I just have to finish this essay first…. I’ll try to sleep, I promise. Night Harry. Malfoy.”

Harry watched her scuttle off to the dorms with her plate of biscuits and chocolates with a pitying look. He barely saw her these days, and even then only briefly. Truth be told, he spent more time with Draco than with her… He looked over at Draco, who was sipping his whiskey again. In the warm light of the fire, his usually sharp features were tempered, harsh lines becoming gentle curves. Draco noticed him watching and lowered his glass, holding it between his knees.

“Why’d you want to know about Ginny?” Harry asked. He bent his head to rest his cheek against his knees, turning his face towards Draco to look at him more fully. There was that blush again, and this time Harry saw it creep up from under Draco’s starched collar. Draco shrugged.

“Just… curious.” He downed the rest of his whiskey and stood, setting his glass on the window seat. “I’m off to bed. See you in the morning.”

Harry frowned as he raised his head. “It’s not even that late,” he protested. “You okay?”

Draco bit his lip and gave his one-shouldered shrug. “Whiskey makes me sleepy,” he said, not looking at Harry. Something in the fidgety way Draco’s fingers played with the hem of his jumper made Harry suspect Draco wasn’t being completely honest. “Goodnight, Harry.”

“Draco – ”

But, much to Harry’s confused surprise, Draco hurried off to the boys’ dormitories. Later, when Harry himself went up to bed, he found Draco curled up in a tight ball under his sheets. Judging by the shallow rise and fall of his ribs, he was only pretending to be asleep. Harry sighed. He’d figure out what was going on with him eventually.

-

The next morning, Harry and Draco sat on their sofa in front of the fire with their cups of tea. They had finished their respective books and had swapped – Draco now read the biography of the circumnavigating witch, and Harry a book on medieval history. Both looked up, however, when they heard heavy footfalls on the stairs to the girls’ dormitories. Zacharias Smith stumbled down into the common room, his shirt buttoned up wrong and barefoot. Seeing the two on the sofa, he sneered at them with a leery nod. Draco made a face. Zacharias snorted and strode off like a conquering hero to the boys’ dormitory. Draco shook his head as he returned to his book, disdain clear in his rain-grey eyes.

“Straight people,” he grumbled under his breath. Harry’s eyebrows shot up. Draco, noticing, winked at him and added with a crooked smile, “Present company excluded.”

Harry’s grin spread slowly across his face. “What makes you think I’m straight?” he asked, setting his book aside. Draco looked taken aback. He frowned, marking his place in his book and putting it on the coffee table.

“Well, your track record from the past several years, for one thing,” he pointed out. He settled back into his corner, his ankle crossed over his knee as he rested his arm along the back of the sofa. He looked Harry up and down, quickly at first, then slow and languid, taking his time to really consider him. Harry blushed and instinctively crossed his arms over his chest, shifting so that his back was against the armrest and his drawn-up knees leaned against the back cushion. Draco pursed his lips, hiding a smile. “So? Are you? Not straight?”

Harry chewed his lip. He hadn’t told anyone besides Hermione and Ron, the same night he had sworn off alcohol forever. Ron had wanted him to tell Ginny – they had broken up at this point, though, and Harry didn’t want to rub salt in the wound, so he kept quiet. But here was Draco, and Harry thought, maybe, he should tell him.

“Not really, no,” he said slowly. He picked at the pilling on his old Weasley jumper. “I, er, well, I.” He cleared his throat. _God_ , he thought as he bit down hard on his lip, _why is it so hard?_ He glanced up at Draco, who was watching him patiently, his smile growing kind. Harry’s heart stuttered, and he swallowed. “I like girls and boys,” he said in a rush, cheeks hot and flushed.

Instinctively, irrationally, he winced, expecting a blow that didn’t come. Draco moved his hand from the back of the sofa to rest on Harry’s knee, before it slipped down his shin to curl around his ankle, his touch sending an electric current through Harry’s leg. Draco’s thumb brushed back and forth against the jut of his ankle bone. Harry shivered.

“I’m honoured that you told me,” Draco said, smiling warmly at him. “It means a lot, you know.”

Harry forced himself to smile back. A part of him wanted to tell Draco to never stop touching him. “What about you?” he asked instead. Draco raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, I am very gay,” Draco assured him with a grin. He gave Harry’s ankle a final gentle squeeze before leaning back again. Harry did his best to hide his disappointment and focus on Draco as he continued, “I mean, it’s not like I’m broadcasting it, but people generally come to their own conclusions, and in this case, they would be right.” He shrugged, turning to look at the fire. “Although, I’ll be honest, it’s been a long time since I’ve even kissed a bloke,” he mused. “Not many opportunities to, with the war and all.” He side-eyed Harry, a mischievous gleam in his eye. “Have you ever kissed a bloke, Potter?”

Harry buried his face in his hands. Draco laughed, the sound like the merry crackling of the fire.

“You know, it’s okay,” he said, still chuckling. “You’ve been busy. If I haven’t had much opportunity to pull, I can’t imagine you would either.”

Harry said nothing. He didn’t lower his hands, so he missed the thoughtful look Draco gave him. He did, however, feel the cushions shift and move, and felt cool hands tugging at his own.

“Harry,” Draco murmured. “Look at me.”

Harry sighed and dropped his hands into his lap. Then he gasped. Draco knelt on the sofa, his upper body bowed over Harry’s knees, his fingers wrapped around Harry’s wrists. His face was so close to Harry’s, and Harry didn’t think anyone had ever looked at him the way Draco did in that moment, not even Ginny. His stomach did a little jig, and he wasn’t sure if he was going to throw up or pass out. Or both.

“If you ever wanted,” Draco whispered, as if he couldn’t believe he was saying the words out loud, “you could kiss me. You know, to see if you like it.”

Harry’s heart stopped. Then it started again at a racing speed against his sternum. Harry sat up, stretching out one leg to give Draco space, and pulled Draco down to meet him.

Their first kiss was messy, mouths mashing together, teeth clicking and noses bumping as they collided. Draco pulled back, and for a horrible moment, Harry thought he was going to laugh at him. But all he did was reposition and draw him back in. This second kiss was slower, gentler as they explored the brush of lips, the hush of breath as they came up for air, only to dive back in, deeper, longer, hungrier. Harry grabbed Draco’s hips, pulling him flush against him, as Draco’s hands tangled in Harry’s wild curls. It was so different from kissing a girl, he realised distantly. The girls he had kissed – albeit only two – were all soft and pliant. Draco was not. He was the drag of stubble against Harry’s skin, the hard press of his body, the sharp pleasure of teeth nipping at his lip. God, he could kiss Draco all day long and never get bored.

But then they heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs, and they leapt apart, flushed, lips slick and bruised from kisses. Eyes wide, they both grabbed their books and ran towards the boys’ dormitories, passing a bleary-eyed Neville and yawning Kevin on the steps as they went.

“Woah, where’s the rush?” Neville asked sleepily.

“Er, forgot we have an essay due in, er, Charms!” Harry said as he and Draco rushed up to their dorm. Neville frowned after them.

“We don’t have an essay due in Charms,” he mumbled. He turned to Kevin. “Do we?”

Kevin shrugged, not awake enough to care. “If we do, I’m screwed,” he replied. “I haven’t written anything.”

-

Draco stopped talking to him. He didn’t come down in the mornings, leaving Harry with a cold cup of tea and a book that didn’t belong to him. He avoided Harry’s questioning eyes at meals, took to sitting next to Daphne Greengrass during lessons, and constantly had the curtains on his four-poster drawn. Harry felt like his foot had fallen through the trick stair in one of the secret passageways, unable to escape while Draco got further and further away. By the end of a week of this, Harry had enough.

“I don’t get it!” he said for the fiftieth time. He and Hermione were in a quiet corner of the library, where Hermione had built herself a nest of books and rolls of parchment. She only allowed Harry’s presence because he was meant to be proof-reading one of an endless number of essays she had to write. But this also meant she got an ear-full of Harry’s whispered tirade against Draco’s sudden cold shoulder. “I thought we were finally getting to be mates, and now he won’t even look at me! He’s so dramatic, honestly, I don’t get it.”

“Harry, dear,” Hermione whispered with a sigh, looking up from one of the massive tomes she had scattered around her. “I love you, you know that, but sometimes you can be so dense. You probably said something without realising it hurt him, and the best thing to do is just apologise.”

Harry groaned and shoved his glasses into his hair so he could rub at his eyes. “But how can I apologise if I don’t know what I’m apologising for?” he demanded in an undertone once he repositioned his glasses. Hermione set her quill down and shook her head with pursed lips.

“Alright. Walk me through what happened the last time you were with him,” she said, “since you seem hell-bent on distracting me.”

Harry bit his lip and ducked his head, wringing his hands in his lap. Hermione’s eyes narrowed.

“Oh, I see,” she murmured. “You know exactly what set him off, don’t you?”

Harry shrugged. He looked up at her through his lashes, still worrying his lip, before returning to stare at his hands with another feeble shrug. Hermione let out a long, despairing sigh. “Harry, I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what happened. Besides, how bad can it be?”

Harry ran a hand through his curls, rubbing at the back of his neck. He knew she was right. He had always told her and Ron everything, down to every nightmare and passing thought. But something told him that this was different. This wasn’t just fancying someone. It was like pulling on the thread of his life only to find that it was intertwined with another all this time. Startingly simple but terrifying in its implication, talking about it would only make it more real. Once he told her, it would cease to be a thought he could just dismiss or smother because he alone knew it existed. It would become A Thing, A Problem.

“We kissed,” he whispered. Hermione’s jaw dropped.

“You _what_?!”

Madam Pince, who had been re-shelving books a couple shelves away, poked her head around a bookcase to shush them. They both sheepishly bent their heads over their work. Harry glanced over at Hermione, only to find her scribbling on a piece of spare parchment. He frowned. A couple minutes later, she shoved the parchment across the table to him. He took it, his frown deepening as he read.

_You kissed him???? Have you gone completely mental?? Of all the boys at school, you had to go for Draco Malfoy?? Of course he’s avoiding you! I’m surprised he hasn’t outed you to the whole school by now! _

He didn’t read the rest. Instead, he scrawled at the end of her neat paragraph, _He’s gay. Told me so himself._ Then he pushed it back over to Hermione with a pointed look. She read his note, her mouth dropping into an ‘oh’. She picked her quill up.

 _Okay, that changes things_ , she wrote. _Maybe he doesn’t really fancy you and doesn’t know how to tell you? Although this is Malfoy, he doesn’t seem like the type to tiptoe around something like this._

Harry, who had leaned forward to read her writing upside down, scrawled in a free space on the parchment, _He asked. I mean, sort of._ He tapped the nib of the quill against the parchment as he pulled his lower lip against his teeth. Hermione turned the parchment around so he could have more space to write, one eyebrow raised as she studied his face. Harry let out a huff, then wrote, _it’s kind of a long story. We were talking about, well, being gay and he asked me if I had ever snogged a bloke, and when he realised I hadn’t, he said I could kiss him to see, you know, if I actually liked it, you know, in practice. And… yeah. We kissed._

He paused. Hermione looked from him to the parchment and back again before impatiently scribbling, _Well??? How was it?_ Harry blushed.

 _Fucking brilliant_.

Hermione suppressed a squeal, her hand over her mouth, her eyes crinkling as she beamed at him. Harry couldn’t help but grin back, even as his whole face flushed and he had to look away to pull himself together. He turned back at the scratching of quill on parchment.

 _I see what you mean now_ , Hermione wrote. _But I guess…did he enjoy it? Because if he didn’t, that might be why._

Harry shook his head, lips twisting as he rolled the memory through his head. _Didn’t seem like he wasn’t, if you know what I mean_, he scrawled, trying to fit the words into the small bit of free space left. Hermione read this and frowned. She crossed her arms over her chest, her fingers tapping against her upper arm as she thought.

“Guess you’ll just have to ask him,” she whispered. Harry threw his hands up in exasperation.

“But he’s avoiding me!” he hissed. Hermione only shrugged, pulling her book back towards her.

“That’s a ‘you’ problem,” she murmured, “not my problem.”

Harry rolled his eyes with a sigh before storming off back to the eighth-year common room. Hermione watched him go, shaking her head a little. “God, he’s hopeless,” she muttered under her breath.

-

That weekend was a Hogsmeade weekend. The night before, the first snow of the season fell, covering the grounds in a bright white frost. It wouldn’t stick around for long, and it wouldn’t properly snow for another week or two, but it was enough to get everyone excited that Friday night. The eighth years huddled around the common room window, watching the fluffy snowflakes fall with a wondering light in their eyes. It was like the war had never happened and they were all eleven again, experiencing their first snow at Hogwarts. Even Draco stood at the back of the group, a small smile on his thin lips as he watched the snowflakes float past outside.

Harry, turning, noticed him standing there and seized his chance. He wiggled his way free of the tight clump of students to stumble out in front of Draco, whose look of wonderment was quickly wiped away into his neutral mask. Harry, however, refused to be daunted by it.

“Draco!” He smiled at the other boy, maybe a little too cheerfully based on the way Draco raised his eyebrows. “You going to Hogsmeade tomorrow?”

Draco blinked at Harry. “Er, yes,” he said. “I’ve run out of my favourite ink and need to get more. Why?”

“Great. We can go together.”

Draco frowned. “Why?” he repeated. Harry shrugged, looking smug as if he’d already won.

“Maybe I need ink too. See you tomorrow, after breakfast?” When Draco inclined his head, confused and tentative but still technically an affirmation, Harry grinned and rolled back on his heels. “Brill. Looking forward to it!” He strode off, whistling to himself as he went. Draco watched him go with a frown.

“What just happened?” he said to no one in particular. Hermione, who had been half-listening to their exchange from the cluster around the window, came over and patted him on the shoulder with a pitying smile.

“Just go with it, Malfoy,” she told him. “You can’t outrun Harry when he has his mind set.” Draco, who had barely talked to Hermione all term, considered her with narrowed eyes.

“That’s …alarming. Should I be concerned?”

Hermione shrugged. “Not yet,” she replied. Then she turned on her heel and went back to her fortress of books on one of the common room tables, leaving Draco with more questions than ever.

-

Harry met Draco in the courtyard just outside the main gate where the rest of the students gathered before heading down to Hogsmeade. Harry had eaten early and rushed back to the dorm to get ready just as Draco had headed down to breakfast. Dean and Neville shared a look as Harry frantically ransacked his chest of drawers trying to figure out the perfect outfit – he hadn’t wanted to risk getting anything on it while at breakfast. Every so often, he would pull on a jumper, run over to the mirror in the adjoining toilet, only to run back and exchange the jumper for something else.

“You got a date or something?” Dean asked as he laced up his boots, watching Harry, who had finally settled on a green wool jumper with black jeans, try to manage his hair. Harry blushed and mumbled, “something like that,” before giving up on his hair. Dean grinned knowingly.

“With who?” he asked. He shot Neville a wink. Neville rolled his eyes as he leaned against the corner post of his four-poster. Harry, too busy pulling on his favourite pair of combat boots, ignored both of them. When Dean repeated his question with a, “Hey, Harry!”, to get his attention, Harry only blushed a darker shade of crimson. He shoved his wallet and his wand in his back pocket and pulled on Sirius’s old leather jacket before striding off to meet Draco, ignoring Dean’s third shout of, “Harry! Who is it?”

“You know,” Neville said, pushing off from the bed post, “if it’s who we think it is, Seamus is going to win the betting pool.” Dean shook his head.

“Nah, he bet they would get together on Halloween. I was the one who said before Christmas.”

Neville shook his head as he grabbed his coat. “Can’t believe I bet five Galleons on New Year’s,” he muttered to himself. “Who would have thought things would escalate so quickly?”

Out in the courtyard, Harry sat on one of the cold stone benches, his knee bouncing as he tried to distract himself by watching the other students mingle. They all looked so young, and yet there was a shadow hanging over them, muting their chatter and laughter in the chill November air. A few simply stood in front of the memorial stone set in the middle of the courtyard, reading the names of all that had fallen in the Battle. Harry huddled in his jacket as he tapped his fingers against the edge of the bench. Over a year later, he could still recite every name on that list.

“Harry.”

He jumped and turned around. Draco snickered at his surprise, a hint of his old sneer on his lips, though now it was teasing rather than malicious. Harry put a hand over his racing heart as he scowled playfully at him.

“Christ on a bike, you scared me!” He stood, still massaging his chest. Draco didn’t look the least bit apologetic. In fact, in his pressed charcoal-grey trousers with matching blazer over a black turtleneck, he looked the definition of posh. As they set off with the rest of the students, lingering a little behind the group, Draco easily fell into stride next to Harry with a smirk.

“I’ll have to add ‘sneaking up on the Saviour of the Wizarding World’ to my CV,” said Draco, a proud bounce in his step. Harry snorted.

“That’s not fair,” he protested, “I was distracted!”

“Oh, really? Is that the excuse you’re going with?”

Harry shook his head, but he couldn’t stifle his grin. “Tosser.”

“Scarhead.”

“Oooo, so original,” Harry teased. He nudged Draco’s shoulder, looking up at the other boy with twinkling eyes. Draco smiled back. The hopeful warmth in his grey eyes sent Harry’s stomach skittering in circles so that he had to press his lips together to ensure it didn’t come tumbling out of his mouth. Then Draco’s smile faded, and he looked away, shoving his hands into the pockets of his trousers. Harry’s shoulders slumped, crestfallen, as he frowned at his boots.

“What is this about, Potter?” Draco asked as he fixed his glare on a couple of third years in front of them who kept looking over their shoulders at the pair. The third years blushed and hurried off, leaving Harry and Draco far out of earshot of the group. Harry chewed his lip.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” he stated. Draco scowled at the frosty path in front of them as it turned to slush under their feet. Pushing through his nerves, Harry continued, “You’ve barely looked at me since we… you know.”

“Yes,” Draco sneered. He hunched his shoulders against the wind, his scorn turning inward. “I do _know_. And that is precisely why I’ve been, as you put it, avoiding you.”

Harry frowned. “But why?” He reached out and, grabbing Draco’s elbow, pulled him to a stop. Draco exhaled sharply, jaw clenched as he refused to meet Harry’s gaze. Harry didn’t let go. “I don’t understand.”

“Of course you do,” Draco snapped as he tried to step back, away from Harry. Harry only tightened his grip and followed him, even going so far as to step right into his personal space, toe to toe. Draco shut his eyes as he took a deep breath through his nose. “This won’t work, Harry,” he said in a cool monotone, like he was reading from some mental script. “Just leave it. It’s better this way.”

Harry felt like Draco had kicked the wind out of him. Draco’s eyes fluttered open, and the look he gave him only made Harry’s knees shake. Weary and hopeless, the storm in Draco’s eyes threatened to wash him away. Then Harry’s stupid Gryffindor self-preservation kicked in. He set his jaw and raised his chin as he took hold of Draco’s other arm. Draco’s brow furrowed in confusion.

“Fuck that,” Harry growled. “I didn’t come back to life to care about what other people think. I _like_ you, Draco. If you don’t want to be with me, fine, I can live with that. But if the reason you’re not giving this a chance is because you don’t think it can happen, or because of what everyone will say, then let me prove to you why they’re wrong.”

Draco gasped. He licked his lips, his eyes searching Harry’s face. “I – I thought…” He trailed off. One of his hands came up, fluttering near Harry’s cheek, wanting but afraid to touch. He swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing as he tried again to form the words. “I didn’t realise you liked me,” he whispered. Harry frowned.

“Then what were you going on about?”

Draco let out a slightly hysterical laugh. “I thought you didn’t like me!” he said with a shaky grin. “I thought the kiss was just an, I don’t know, an experiment, that it didn’t mean anything, and if it did – I thought I’d ruined everything!”

Harry barked out a laugh. Then he took Draco’s hand that was still hovering just centimetres from his face and leaned his cheek into it, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he smiled up at Draco. “And you say I’m an idiot,” he teased. Draco giggled. He glanced down at their feet before looking back at Harry tentatively.

“You really do like me?” he murmured. Harry turned his head and pressed a kiss into Draco’s palm. When he turned back, Draco’s beaming smile struck him like lightening, stopping his heart in his chest.

Harry didn’t care if anyone saw them. He wrapped his arms around Draco’s neck and kissed him. Draco pulled him close, one arm around Harry’s waist and the other in his hair as he deepened the kiss. They only came up for air when something cold and wet landed on their cheeks. They looked up.

It had begun to snow. Like the night before, the flake were big and fluffy, falling petals of ice tossed about by a playful wind. Draco scowled at the heavens. Harry laughed. Startled, Draco looked down just in time to see Harry stick out his tongue and catch a snowflake.

“Why are you like this?” he murmured, brushing another snowflake from Harry’s cheek. Harry raised an eyebrow.

“Like what?” he asked.

“Adorable.”

Draco gave him a kiss on the forehead to hide his smile, but Harry only pulled him down to kiss him properly again. After a minute, Draco pulled away again with a laugh. “We’re never going to get to Hogsmeade if we carry on like this!” Harry shrugged. Draco smacked him in the arm.

“Hey!” Harry yelped.

“I’m out of ink, Potter, I’m not getting distracted by you and missing my chance to get more.” He stepped out of Harry’s embrace, his hand finding Harry’s as they wove their fingers together with matching besotted smiles.

“Why get more ink when you can get some?” Harry asked, waggling his eyebrows cheekily. Draco blushed and tugged Harry along the path.

“Come on, you git, before the weather gets any worse.”

Harry didn’t stop grinning the entire way to Hogsmeade.

-

Dean won twenty Galleons that night. He and Neville had been playing a game of wizard chess when Harry and Draco stepped through the portrait hole holding hands. When Dean saw their blushing, beaming faces, he clambered onto his chair and announced to the crowded common room, “Pay up, lads!”

“And ladies!” added Daphne. There was a chorus of groans throughout the common room. Daphne smirked at the gaggle of disappointed girls who approached her, digging the coins out of their pockets. Harry squawked in protest. Draco ducked his head to bury his mortification in Harry’s curls. Zacharias Smith stared at them from his seat by the fire, mouth agape.

“You’re _gay_?” he demanded. Everyone, including Harry and Draco, looked at him pityingly.

“What the hell were you all betting on, anyway?” Harry demanded even as he began to laugh. Dean shrugged, hopping down from his chair to collect the Galleons from a disgruntled Neville and the two Ravenclaw boys.

“Well, I don’t know about the ladies,” he said, “but we were betting on when you were finally going to make this shit official. Oi, Hermione!”

Hermione, who had just come in through the portrait hole, leaned around the stack of books she was carrying and noticed Harry and Draco standing there, holding hands and looking sheepish. “Oh! Well done, you two!” she said with a weary smile. “Took you long enough.” When Dean called her name again, she swivelled towards him, nearly sending the top few books flying.

“Tell Ron he owes me two Galleons! Just because he isn’t here doesn’t mean he gets away with not paying up!” Dean said, wagging his finger at her. Hermione sighed, she waved him off with a fond look, promising to get the money from Ron when he Floo’d next.

“Oh, that reminds me.” Dean wove his way through the common room and, grabbing a pinch of Floo powder, tossed it into the flames. “Seamus!” he called. “You owe me, babe!”

“ _Babe_?” Harry asked, flabbergasted. Neville looked up from the chess board he was resetting.

“Oh, you didn’t know? He and Seamus have been dating since the Battle. Keep up, lads,” he added with a teasing grin. Harry shook his head. Draco wrapped his arms around Harry’s waist as he rested his chin on Harry’s shoulder. Harry leaned back into the embrace instinctively, his hands resting on top of Draco’s.

“How did I miss that one?” he murmured, half to himself. Draco shrugged.

“You’re not the most observant person, you have to admit.”

Harry glared at him. “I’m observant!” he protested. Draco rolled his eyes and gave him a quick, chaste kiss.

“Sure you are, _babe_.”

-

“Do you have plans for the winter hols?” Harry asked, moving his pawn forward. Draco pursed his lips as he studied the board.

“Well, Mother is in France with family – she says I can come out to see her, but I’ll probably just stay here. I don’t want a horde of Malfoys demanding to know if there is a woman in my life, or if I’ll work for the Ministry like Father.” His knight took out Harry’s bishop and dragged it off the board before returning to its spot. “What about you?”

Harry leaned his chin in his hand, reconsidering his game plan. “I’m going to the Burrow on Christmas, but I’ll be staying here for the most part. I love the Weasleys, but Hermione and Ron are going to be all over each other, and Ginny… well, we’re friendly and all, but that’s one awkward conversation I don’t want to have with Mrs. Weasley. She’s still heartbroken that Ginny and I didn’t end up married, if I’m being honest.” He moved his rook closer to Draco’s queen. “It looks like it’ll just be the two of us with the whole eighth-year dorm to ourselves,” he added, raising one eyebrow as he looked suggestively over his glasses at Draco. Draco smirked.

“It certainly looks that way.” He moved his queen out of harm’s way, his smirk falling into a small frown. “I’m sure I’ll find something to do on Christmas Day,” he mumbled as Harry defended his only bishop from Draco’s malicious-looking knight. Harry’s brow furrowed.

“Come to the Burrow with me.”

Draco’s head snapped up in shock. “What?”

“Come. To. The. Burrow. With. Me.” He poked Draco in the arm. “It’s your turn.”

“I know it’s my turn, you knob.” Draco let out a long breath as he leaned heavily on his forearms, staring at the board with distant eyes. “I – I wouldn’t want to intrude, and I’m sure the Weasleys wouldn’t want me there, after everything my family and I have done.”

Harry reached over and put his hand on Draco’s crossed arms with a gentle smile. “You don’t have to come if it makes you uncomfortable,” he assured him. “But if you decide to come, so long as you let them all know how sorry you are for everything, well, Mrs. Weasley never gives up a chance to be a mother. Trust me. The woman’s practically adopted me.”

Draco snorted. He scratched at his temple as he gave the board a tight-lipped smile. “Fine, I’ll think about it.” He moved his bishop. “Checkmate.”

“God damn it! How? That’s three times in a row!”

Draco’s laugh filled the common room, warm and free.

**Author's Note:**

> By the way, the eighth-year ladies were betting on whether or not the boys were queer or "just really good friends" (some were still hoping to get it on with the Chosen One lol). Anyway, I hope you like this sweet and fluffy fic!


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